This invention relates to electronic flux gate compasses, and particularly to techniques for calibrating the output of an electronic flux gate compass to compensate for disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field caused by localized magnetic material, such as parts of a vehicle in which the compass is mounted, and asymmetrical properties of the flux gate compass circuitry.
Electronic flux gate compasses are devices that provide electrical signals indicative of direction, based on a measurement of the strength of the Earth's field in the direction that the compass is pointed. Typically, this is accomplished by providing a pair of orthogonal sense coils wrapped around a torroidal core of magnetic material that is periodically saturated and unsaturated, thereby generating as outputs from said sense coils periodic signals representative of the magnetic flux from the Earth's magnetic field passing through the respective coils. These outputs represent the magnitudes of vectors on respective axes of a reference Cartesian coordinate system associated with the compass rotated some angle .theta. with respect to magnetic north so that their vector sum represents magnetic north, and the angle of rotation of the Cartesian coordinate system represents the direction that the compass is pointed with respect to magnetic north. A device of this type is described in the copending U.S. Pat. application of Roth et. al., Ser. No. 07/388579, entitled "Magnetometer and Magnetic Field Strength Measurement Method."
Electronic flux gate compasses are increasingly used in position and navigation systems for vehicles, particularly terrestrial vehicles. When installed in a vehicle, or when moved near a significantly large piece 2f magnetic material, magnetic interference caused by the vehicle or other nearby magnetic material may reduce the accuracy of the compass, or even render it useless. Such interference may be caused by magnetically "hard" material which retains for a relatively long time magnetism induced by a local magnetic field when the material is formed and shaped, or it may be caused by magnetically "soft" material whose magnetism is induced by the presence of an external magnetic field and changes with vehicle orientation. Also, asymmetrical characteristics of the electrical circuits which detect and amplify the outputs from the sense coils may produce distortion in the output of the compass.
Ideally, the vector sum of the two outputs of an electronic flux gate compass, which represents the Earth's magnetic field vector, would trace a circle centered on the Cartesian coordinate system of the compass as the compass is rotated 360 degrees in the presence of the Earth's magnetic field. However, in the presence of hard magnetic material the apparent center of rotation of the Earth's magnetic field vector is offset from the center of the coordinate system of the compass. In addition, the presence of soft magnetic material and asymmetrical characteristics of the compass circuitry often cause the vector sum to trace an ellipse, rather than a circle. A vehicle in which the compass is mounted may contain hard magnetic material, soft magnetic material, or both.
A number of techniques have been developed for correcting distortion produced in the output of a flux gate compass as a result of the presence of local magnetic material. For example, in Moulin et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,753 a set of data is generated representing an ellipse rotated with respect to a reference axis as a vehicle is driven in a circle, and general mathematical equations are solved to calculate coefficients for transforming the ellipse to a circle and translating the center of the circle to the true center of the reference coordinate system of the compass. A similar technique is disclosed in Marchant et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,546,550.
In Mattern et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,991,361, a correction vector is found from the halved vector sum of maximum and minimum values of the magnetic field as a magnetic probe is rotated in a circle to correct for the offset of the ideal circle from the actual center of the coordinate system of the probe. A similar technique is disclosed in Scherer et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,067.
However, none of these techniques discloses any way of simply and continuously updating the calibration of a flux gate compass in a terrestrial vehicle as that vehicle moves from place to place. Rather, they each require that the vehicle be stopped, at least momentarily, and driven in a circle to recalibrate the compass. This is a time consuming task, and there is a need, particularly in the efficient use of package delivery vehicles, to avoid such inefficiencies.